Mi Contra Fa

Lessons learned

I worry more about a command performance than a competition.  If I mess up during a competition, the worst thing that happens is that I lose.  But when someone has requested me to play for an occasion, and I mess that up... it feels like giving a broken present.

I was requested to play my wire harp for my church's summer solstice service.  Normally, I do my improv as meditations, but the organizer wanted "Sheebeg, Sheemor."  Now, I know that; it's actually the only O'Carolan I know.  So I got out the harp for some crash practicing.

"Let's go simple," I thought.  "Melody with octave-grabbing on the strong notes."  Except I'd grab sevenths and ninths instead of octaves.  "Melody with moving drone!"  Better, but still not performance-ready.

Back when the Storvik Music Ensemble was running, we had a violinist.  He played well enough solo but had no group experience.  No problem, that's what ensemble was for.  So I'd give him easy parts - really easy.  Like, one note per measure.  And he seemed offended.  He could play more difficult stuff than that.

But not under pressure.

I eventually just played the melody, with one open fifth at the ending.  And it worked.  I think I missed two notes, but they weren't critical ones and I kept the rhythm going - you could legitimately call it a "variation," I think.  Certainly not ear-splittingly wrong.  I was happy with the performance, and I suspect I would not have been if I'd gone for something even a smidgen more technically challenging.

Gnomic Verses with Harp

A tech-enabled experiment!

Poem: A selection of the gnomic verses from the Exeter Book as found in "The Earliest English Poems," trans. Michael Alexander, Penguin Books 1991.

Music: A progression of open fifths: DAda (x4), CGcg (x4), repeat for one minute ending on DAda

Recording software: Audacity

Microphone: Initially, the mic on the webcam was picking up too much noise so I tried the directed mic-on-a-stick I have (a $10 cheapie).  Noise problem solved, audio quality fairly wretched.  On a different computer, I did once get a good recording off of this thing...

Recording Notes: Place mic near harp soundboard to record music.  Place mic near mouth to record words.

Mixing: I recorded the music and spoken word components separately, in different Audacity files.  Then I copy-pasted the spoken word track into the music project and "Saved As" a third project.  I had to balance the two tracks a bit, turning down the harp and turning up the words.

Technical Difficulties: Make sure Windows Vista Defender is NOT running before doing ANYTHING.

Result: Can be heard here (MP3, ~ 1 Mb). 

Conclusion: It's not exactly a show-stopper, but there's nothing wrong with the very simple progression as an underlay.  I stress again that they were recorded separately, with no attempt to align the words with the shifts in the music.  The recording itself is fairly crap, but it does let me hear roughly what I sound like without me having to play, recite and listen all at the same time.

Future Work: Try it with lyre. Also, memorize the selection of text.

Saxon Songs

Carol Wood has put out a new book called Saxon Songs, which is a compilation of information on Anglo-Saxons, their harps and their poetry.  She's got a PhD in Medieval Literature, apparently, and is also the person behind the Chaucer Songbook, which I have heard praised to the skies but never purchased (my interest in 14th cen music not being all that strong). 

While I am fairly sure I have read all or most of the primary sources for Anglo-Saxon harp information, I am still eager to see what another scholar has made of it.  The book also includes her settings for some of the poems, and again, I'd like to see what conclusions she's drawn and how they compare to what I do.

Pimp My Psaltery?

(Why don't I have an "Instruments" tag?)

I have a MusicMaker psaltery-toy.  You know, something like this, with a soundboard 1/4" thick and a soundhole that was cut with the biggest bit on the drill press. It was medievalish and not expensive, and my baby can bang and drool on it and I don't mind. But I don't actually play it often, and I've never taken it to an event.

Well, yesterday I picked it up, held it sideways in the crook of my arm, and played most of my medieval repertoire on it. One-handed, I wasn't getting any harmony notes in there (not on first try, anyway) but the melodies were just fine. (And I suspect that, since they were often plucked with plectrums, it was a melody instrument anyway. It'd be like two-fingered piano playing.)

And it occurred to me that this was much smaller, more durable, and more portable than even my tiny wire harp. Which, now that we're toting a ton of baby stuff to every event, is a consideration.

The main problem (if it's a problem) is the steel strings on the thing. The Internet is making assorted claims on what medieval psalteries would have been strung with - gut to start, almost certainly, and "eventually wire" but no one wants to date the advent of wire. (At any rate, I doubt I could fit gut strings through the holes on the wire mounts.) But I could do harp wire - I forget if it's brass or bronze, but I think brass - mostly so that it would be easier on my fingernails.

And if I destring it, why, I could decorate the soundboard!

Of course, all that work and decoration moves it away from being something the baby can gnaw on. Which could be something of a shame, because he also seems to like to pick out notes from time to time. Never mind finding the time to do it. Probably I'll leave it alone.